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Handbook of European Societies pp 571–628Cite as

Welfare State

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Abstract

The welfare state is at the heart of the institutional structure of all European societies. Yet there are major variations across countries due to different historical developments. The origins of social policy date back more than 120 years, but the real expansion of the welfare state did not take place until the end of World War II. In the 1950s, social programmes in most western European countries entered into a historically unique period of growth, which lasted until the 1970s (Flora 1986–1988). Since the early 1980s, however, the dominating issues of the welfare state debate have been crisis and retrenchment (Pierson 2001). Today, the expansion of state welfare has come to an end in most countries, but the core institutions and features of the welfare state have survived (Kuhnle 2000) and even been stabilized and consolidated. After more than 20 years of crisis debates and retrenchment policies, the welfare state has successfully adapted to domestic as well as international pressures (Castles 2004) and is supported by the vast majority of citizens in all European nations. The role of the state in social security, on the other hand, has changed during this time.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Figures are taken from Alber (1982) who, however, provides no information on Eastern Europe.

  2. 2.

    It should be kept in mind that social and economic conditions were rather different in capitalist and socialist economies. In the latter, for example, unemployment did not exist officially. Hence, there is no need for unemployment compensation. Also, for instance, basic goods such as food, housing and transportation were heavily subsidized which does not show up in the figures.

  3. 3.

    The more recent developments in social spending are analysed in Section 19.3, although on a different data basis.

  4. 4.

    As a second approach to characterize different welfare regime types, Esping-Andersen uses the concept of “stratification” by arguing that “the welfare state is not just a mechanism that intervenes in, and possibly corrects, the structure of inequality; it is, in its own right, a system of stratification. It is an active force in the ordering of social relations” (Esping-Andersen 1990: 23). It should be noted that the two methods of identifying clusters of welfare states lead to similar but not identical classification of countries (Kohl 1999).

  5. 5.

    The method of calculating, “pension points”, used in some countries, is just a variant of a defined benefit scheme.

  6. 6.

    There is only one country (Hungary) that does not have any of the three variants of minimum protection, and only two countries (Ireland, New Zealand) do not have some form of mandatory second-tier pension, be it public or private.

  7. 7.

    These include public plus private mandatory schemes. Systems with near-universal coverage (as occupational schemes in the Netherlands and Sweden) are also included, provided they cover at least 90% of the employees.

  8. 8.

    For reasons of comparison, earnings levels are standardized, ranging from 50 to 250% of average earnings.

  9. 9.

    The “total income package”, i.e. net equivalent household income, is the basis for setting the relative poverty lines which are used for calculating the poverty rates.

  10. 10.

    These data are based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) 1999. There are certain methodological problems associated with the ECHP (e.g. the non-imputation of rents in case of home ownership) which do not allow drawing definite conclusions.

  11. 11.

    Convergence has here been measured by the coefficient of variation of the respective expenditure ratios.

  12. 12.

    The USA remains the big outlier among the developed industrialized nations with its mainly voluntary and incomplete private system.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mannheim Center for European Social Research, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

    Thomas Bahle

  2. Institute of Sociology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Jürgen Kohl

  3. Mannheim Center for European Social Research, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

    Claus Wendt

Authors
  1. Thomas Bahle
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  2. Jürgen Kohl
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  3. Claus Wendt
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Correspondence to Thomas Bahle .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Humanwissenschaften, Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd, Oberbettringer Str. 200, Schwäbisch Gmünd, 73525, Germany

    Stefan Immerfall

  2. Dept. Sociology, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RQ, United Kingdom

    Göran Therborn

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Bahle, T., Kohl, J., Wendt, C. (2010). Welfare State. In: Immerfall, S., Therborn, G. (eds) Handbook of European Societies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88199-7_19

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